Thursday, May 22, 2014

he biological purists argue that marriage is naturally between one man and one woman of different families, that it is meant to support a naturally stable structure in which children are created and raised and by which our species best propagates and thrives.

A few well-shopped jurists have said, in effect, "What do the laws of nature and of nature's God know?" Marriage, they and other non-biological purists counter, is between any two (or more) consenting persons. Whether opposite-sex, same-sex, or even same-kin, it should not matter. The homophobes, incestophobes, and other bigots have no case under the laws of enlightened nations.

With the issue being defined in terms of rights, not nature, it won't be long before all persons are free to choose to marry whomever they respectively wish. A man may marry his father(s), his adult brother(s), and/or his adult son(s); a woman her mother(s), adult sister(s), and/or adult daughter(s). Similarly, a woman may marry her father(s), her adult brother(s), and/or her adult son(s); a man his mother(s), adult sister(s), and/or adult daughter(s). Their right to choose should not be curtailed by bigotry, superstition, or fear.

We all have heard the propaganda of incestophobes that a same-kin marriage is more likely to produce physically or mentally challenged children than a non-kin one. "Inbreeding" is the derogatory term they use. Yet their beliefs are based solely on historical anecdote or biased "studies" that allegedly show the "dangers" of it; and their clichés and stereotypes promote only ignorance and hatred. Of course, such "concerns" are irrelevant with respect to same-sex-same-kin marriages.

Our modern view of tolerance demands that anything goes. Nothing should stop it. This is becoming especially true for the evolving construct of marriage.